Growing Pears - Change or Perish!

Growers and marketers will have to deal with the potential of a larger volume of Bartlett pears on the fresh market for 2008 and beyond. I see two viable options to deal with the situation:

Option #1: Remove or Renovate

The primary reason for removal should be based on profitability of the orchard and the potential to produce larger pears. Growers will have to work with their shippers or marketers to determine what is expected for the quality and quantity for this coming season. Removing or renovating existing and older, unprofitable Bartlett pear blocks (Figure 1) should be considered as the first option to deal with the current situation. Unfortunately this will also involve some of the Bosc pears also within the same orchards. At 8 tons per acre or greater, the profit margin for pear production ($3874) is slightly higher than 5 tons of Cabernet Franc grapes ($3603). But do all growers really know what 8 ton per acre looks like in the field? If you had an 8% pack out, you would need 17,280 lbs per acre. If your tree spacing was 20 x 14 feet (155 trees per acre), then you would need 112 lbs. per tree. That's an average of 7 ½ 11 quart picking lugs per tree. You would have to harvest 10 ½ lugs per tree for the older wider spaced blocks at 20 x 20 feet (109 trees per acre) to achieve 8 marketed tons per acre. The breakeven point for these old orchards would be around 4 lugs per tree at this spacing, so each grower should carefully calculate how profitable their block is before bringing out the chainsaw.

Figure 1. Old Bartlett orchard spaced 20 x 20 feet

It is possible but not easy to renovate an old vase or umbrella shaped pear orchard. Since 75% of the trees must be pruned, thinned and harvested from an 8 or 10 foot ladder, big cuts would have to be made. Rachel Elkins, U.C. Davis, California Pear Extension Agent, visited Niagara in 1998 and 2006 as a guest speaker at the OFVC at Brock University and also gave the pear growers a pruning demonstration. In 1998 her advice was to cut the tops back and "let the light in!" Not an easy thing to do. But, if large branches are allowed to shade out lower limbs, this usually results in weak spurs which can produce only small fruit (Figure 2). Pears, like all crops, require light interception throughout the canopy to produce healthy shoots, spurs and large fruit.

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Figure 2. Weak, old, shaded spurs

Option #2: Replant and Diversify

Normally, growers should always plan 5-10 years in advance to where they want and need to be.

The McIntosh "Quandry" - Do we really want a pear industry where 80% of production is one cultivar? Do we really want to grow the lowest priced pear on the market? Do we really want a small fruit and a pear tree that is extremely susceptible to disease (fire blight)? Do really want a pear that has a very short harvest, storage and market window?

Nine years of the CanAdapt Pear Trials have yielded impressive information. Here are a few highlights:

• Trees, trained in the first 3-4 years using limb spreading, yielded 6.5 tons per acre at the St. Davids site in the 5th leaf
  
• Trees staked and trained to a higher density (18 x 12 feet or closer) using a central leader system yielded 16 to 19 tons per acre in the 9th leaf (Harovin Sundown and HW620) (Figure 3)

Figure 3. CanAdapt Trial - Intensively trained pear system

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Harvest results from the St. David's site 2003 to 2007:

• Using Old Home x Farmingdale 69, 87 and 97 rootstocks fruit size was 12-14% larger and yields were 29-66% greater than the standard Bartlett rootstock
  
• New cultivars and selections HW620 (211 grams), Harovin Sundown (196 grams) and Harrow Crisp (151 grams) produced firmer, larger fruit than the Swiss Bartlett (138 grams) cultivar
  HW620 and Harovin Sundown produced yields 14 and 47% greater than the standard Swiss Bartlett cultivar
  
• Average Fire Blight ratings for the Harrow cultivars and selections were 8.7 compared with 7.0 for Swiss Bartlett where 9.0 is immunity, 7.0 is fair to good and anything below 5.0 is not commercially acceptable

The Future of Pear Production in Ontario

Growers will have to deal with the current issues at hand to improve fruit size and yields. Those orchards without irrigation which are not producing good-sized pears will have to be removed or renovated. Long term plans should to be made to replace old orchards with higher density, more intensive systems that can produce better crops and larger pears. The future of fruit production will have to reduce labour costs in order to remain competitive. Orchard systems in Ontario will have to change and adapt to pruning and harvesting aids (Figure 4). There is a bright future in pear production as consumers are now looking for local flavours, local foods and new exciting cultivars, but only if the industry changes and adopts new technology. Otherwise, the pear industry could perish!

Figure 4. Pears systems that can be adapted to mechanization

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